Tim Cook is in India and he is mixing business with pleasure, and
spirituality. The CEO of the $233 billion Apple Inc., on his maiden
India trip, started his day early on Wednesday with a visit to the Shree
Siddhivinayak temple, shortly after arriving on his private jet from
China, where Apple announced a $1 billion investment in taxi-hailing
company, Didi Chuxing.
Mr. Cook’s first visit assumes significance as Apple reported its first
quarterly drop in global iPhone sales last month, while its India
revenues grew by 56 per cent.
Coinciding with the visit, the company announced an iOS mobile app
design centre in Bengaluru, intended to support and accelerate the
growth of Apple’s developer community.
In addition, Mr. Cook met mobile app developers in Mumbai. After the
conversation, he tweeted, “Great to hear from some of India’s top iOS
developers today. Innovative apps and many ideas for the future!” He had
breakfast with Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry, before meeting N.
Chandrasekharan, CEO, Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest
software exporter.
Later, Mr. Cook joined RIL executives Manoj Modi and Sanjay Mashruwala,
MD of 4G venture Reliance Jio, for lunch at Antilia, the Ambani
residence. RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani, away in the U.S., was expected to
join Mr. Cook for dinner, hosted by Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan. He
also met Sunil Sood, MD & CEO, Vodafone India, India’s second
largest telecom services provider.
Apple CEO Tim Cook gave an impetus to the iOS community on his India visit, meeting a clutch of them on his first day here.
“From meeting Tim Cook, we feel that Apple is extremely enthusiastic
about growing the App ecosystem in India,” said Apurva Roy Choudhury,
CEO, Cynapse. “They have a strong roadmap for the future,” he added. Its
app, Numerics, is a business dashboard app for iPhone, iPad and Apple
watch.
“We attracted Apple’s interest due to our unique use of their technology
and were invited along with three other developers to present our apps
to the Apple team,” said Choudhury.
Apple is also keen on bundled offerings with telecom companies in India,
said an official in a large Indian conglomerate. With bundling, users
would get to buy phones at a low cost and remain with a mobile operator
for a period, with financing options built in.
Significantly, after meeting Reliance Jio and Vodafone executives, Mr.
Cook is slated to meet Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Group that
owns Airtel.
In Mumbai, he met ICICI Bank’s MD & CEO Chanda Kochhar. ICICI Bank
was among the first to introduce a banking application on the Apple
Watch, even before it was introduced in India.
He also met HDFC Ltd chairman Deepak Parekh.
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